Saturday, July 04, 2009

Moment to Moment

How did you like Jurassic Park, I ask the old lama?It's like the Bardo only the Bardo is worse

For J & AM ...........May We R.I.P.

This morning H. Smith, my diabetes counselorcaptures my poetic sensibility when he tells me that Byetta,the miracle drug for lowering blood glucosecomes from the saliva of the Gila monstera sort of reptilian bodhisattva thoughrepugnant creature-- sluggish, ugly, and foul,Like all losers I fantasize that my April firstPowerball is a winnerI see my seaside cottage overgrown with Rose of Sharonrose hip clusters at the weathered picket fence, air scentedwith salt, kelp and sweet grassesdistant laughter carried over the swoosh of ocean sounds

I’m happiest here, in my primal memory from growing up on

the Pacific coast.

I’ve already gifted poet friends, given millions to a Cambodian girls

recovery fund from sexual bondage in brothels.

I know my charitiesI want to walk barefoot on pristine hardwood floors accented by plushoriental carpets a high bed looking out to sea through gossamer curtains.

my own movie almost as good as the real thing,.

It’s all I have

I’m already exhausted imagining it all.

I’m not surprised you consider me “crazy” or “power hungry,”

a “malicious liar”—I’ve been called worse.

Remember “dear ones” every projection is a T-Rex Chasing you down in the bardo corridor

when you’re lost in Juarez without a name.oooxxxx Won’t MATTER HEREon the back streets of Old Weird America.

I cleaned my fridge down on haunches emptying out fetid fruits,

veggies, and brown labia sprouting barnacles

My disregard for the world’s hungry shameless

MY MIND A Garbage

Bag

I remember her once before things got complicatedshe wore his fedora hat when we were in Mexicostill humble in awe of the company and her lover

the poet, ugly as a toad, who sang of my scrambled eggsI hand picked from the market each night sipping tequila from thumbnails before the fireplace

swapping tales of poet scandals.

But it’s the old man leaning on a wallI conjurebasking in the first rays of the sun *misery dissolvedas he lifts his brown face upward

free from the moment.

*The old man basking in the sun is a traditional metaphor for rigpa or primordial wisdom

2 comments:

Jacqueline, your poem, just read this morning (Sep 18), moved me in a way I can't articulate. It almost felt like a good-bye of some sort. Like our footsteps failing to remain as the ground dries out, or as the stamped-down grass upon which we strode defiantly rising back toward the sky.

WHAT IS POETRYMIND?

Officially Poetrymind’s a Decade Old

In the Spring of 2005 while co-directing the New England College MFA Program in Poetry, I considered starting my own blog. I had been introduced to blogging through an MAT program in Information Technology I was enrolled in at Marlboro College.

I still remember sitting bolt upright one night when the word poetrymind manifested as the title. I believe I first heard this word from Russell Edson--at NEC when he read. At one point he responded to a challenge from a faculty saying something like there is only one thing that matters and that is poetrymind. Edson was a magical and deeply ironic prose poet whose work I admire. His work epitomizes for me the simple notion that things are not what they seem. Thus, the phenomenal world is infused with magic and the mystery of discovery with ever fresh eyes.

For me poetrymind is synonymous with “First Thought, Best Thought,” which is to say, thought that represents a state of mind free from conceptual overlays of judgment and second guessing. Rather it is elegant thought borne from pure perception, the original thought before attaching judgement. The slogan, "First Thought, Best Thought", coined by the late Chogyam Trungpa and Allen Ginsberg at the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics is not about writing without revision, as some believe. It is about experience first hand--direct and pure without a lot of egotistic filters or projections.

I am reminded of what the great Zen master, Susuki Roshi called “Beginner’s Mind” --- every moment offers a “fresh” experience. The ground is open vast mind or as Pema Chodron aptly puts it—The sky is open mind and everything else is the weather. Words are the display of poetrymind –alive with potentiality. Words in this context can become a vehicle for discovery of who we are. See No Blood for Hubris on Russell Edson

How to order Primo Pensiero by Jacqueline Gens

I have a few copies left of the first edition of Primo Pensiero published by Shivastan Press (see brief reviews) with a foreword by Anne Waldman. All Shiv's books become collectors items. You can order one directly through me. Contact me at jacqueline.gens@gmail.com for instructions. The price is $12 including shipping. COPIES ARE SOLD OUT. Some on Ebay at times!

Tygerburning Literary Journal

Order Tibetan Literary Arts through Shang Shung US Bookstore. My essay, "Even a Small Stone Casts its Ripple, Women Poets of Tibet" is included with works on the Tibetan literary tradition by Choegyal Namkhai Norbu, Thupten Jinpa, Tulku Thondup and others.